When the Ramayana says monasteries shouldn’t accept donations from women, why does ISKCON accept donations from women?

Transcript

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Question.
When the Ramayana in the Uttarakhand says that a sannyasi should not accept donation from women, why does ISKCON accept donation from women? Answer. In the scriptures, there are eternal principles and there are contextual practices. So, the principle that is involved over here which is eternal is that those who are in the announced order should not have unnecessary contact with the opposite sex because that will contaminate them, that can contaminate them and even cause them to fall from the standards of renunciation.
So, that is the broad principle. Its specific application can vary according to time, place, circumstance. Even in the Ramayana itself, we see that Ravana went to beg alms from Sita.
So, Ravana at that time he adopted the garb of a renunciate of a monk and he approached a woman. So, bhiksham dehi. And Sita did not consider it anywhere appropriate, inappropriate that a monk was coming to ask for alms and if such a thing had been entirely in violation of the social norms at those times then even Ravana would not have taken such a garb because that would have aroused suspicion and his whole objective in wearing a garb of a monk was to gain the trust of Sita at least open her mind to him and then persuade her or abduct her.
So, the fact that Ravana considered such a garb and Sita did not find it objectionable indicates that Sita only said that please wait my husbands will come and then they will serve you properly. So, what it indicates is that a woman giving donation, giving some alms to a monk is not wrong but if the monk is expected to say come and sit in the house and stay in the house then there should be other male members present also but with respect to donation the specific principle the specific practice may vary according to time, place, circumstance and as far as ISKCON is concerned ISKCON is not a monastery. ISKCON is actually a spiritual and cultural movement which offers philosophical education to society and in it the monks may seem to be visibly very prominent in terms of being the people who give many classes or are the public representatives but demographically in terms of number the monks are a very small percentage.
So, ISKCON is not a monastery and ISKCON has many other activities apart from just the monastery. A small part is the monastery. There are temples, there are schools, there are hospitals, there are farm communities, there are various other kinds of projects that are there and the temple itself is the hub of a large group of devotees out of whom the overwhelming majority are congregation devotees.
So, they give donations so that this whole vibrant movement can go on and in that sense the donation even if it is given by female members it is not given to the monastery. It is given to the broad movement out of which one part is the monastery. That’s why that particular principle of not having indiscriminate contact between the sexes especially between the renounced order and the opposite sex that is still followed fairly strictly in ISKCON and the specific practice is not relevant in the specific context of ISKCON not being a monastery.